


Waiting For the Sunset

by valkyriered



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, DAD76, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Multi, Team as Family, background hana/lucio, 中文翻译 | Translation in Chinese
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 15:10:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7897519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valkyriered/pseuds/valkyriered
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack ages slowly, and then all at once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting For the Sunset

**Author's Note:**

> Chinese translation, graciously done by requim (中文翻译) : http://requimword.lofter.com/post/42ad10_c3ed5bb

The morning comes where he can’t get out of bed.  
  
Of course, there have been days like this before. Days where he’d been shot in an op the night before, and needed Mercy and painkillers to get back on his feet. But this time, there had been no such op. In fact, he hasn't been on an op in years. Lately, he’s been running missions from a comfortable seat in the command room, watching through cameras and listening through headsets and directing from a chair Winston used to sit in.  
  
All it had taken was one bullet in his leg, and Mercy had gently, kindly suggested that he stop going on missions. She’d extracted the bullet and told him that he is getting slower and weaker, and that it’s time for the younger ones to take over. That if he doesn’t stop soon he will become a burden.  
  
And so he does. It takes a while to get used to it, to stand in the hangar and watch as the rest of Overwatch piles into the plane and waves goodbye to him standing there, uselessly, holding a chipped mug filled with coffee. He makes himself busy, though. He keeps training the younger ones on how to hold their weapons. He learns how to do repairs on the computers, he sits for hours with Winston figuring out how a mission is going to go. He makes them all dinner when they come back from an op, usually too tired and dirty to do much beyond slump into their seats and eat halfheartedly. He burns with guilt from not being out there with them.  
  
And then one day, he can’t get out of bed. He grunts and tries to hoist himself up on his elbows, but his muscles won’t cooperate and his legs won’t move. He tries wiggling his toes and sees nothing, and there’s a brief moment of panic. _Was I drugged? Did something happen?_ But then he does the logical thing— his fingers scrabble for the comm on his bedside table, and he calls Mercy.  
  
She’s there in an instant, cool fingers running over his legs and knees, calmly asking him to try to move his toes. Nothing. He sees the brief twist of her mouth before she puts back on the calm mask. “I’m so sorry, Jack.”  
  
He shrugs. It was going to happen, eventually. “I’m dying.” He laughs. “I just wish Gabe were here.” Oh, how he wishes Gabe were here. He wanted to die with him, even if he had once imagined them dying young on the battlefield, weapons in hand.  
  
“We can give you prosthetics, we can—“  
  
Jack waves her concerns away. It’s okay. In fact, the idea of death doesn’t scare him nearly as much as it used to. He’s tired. He’s been tired for a long time. The Soldier Enhancement Program had already granted him a much longer life than he should have had. He doesn’t have the time for new legs, for the physical therapy that would accompany them. He’s not sure if he’d ever even fully recover from the operation.  
  
A wheelchair appears by his bed and Mercy shows him how to use it. The hardest part is seeing everyone’s faces when they see him, and so he takes to avoiding the others. It ends up being Winston who chides him for it. “They still need you.” Winston tells him crossly. “Hiding from them isn’t helping.”  
  
“I know.” He says, reaching up to adjust the settings on his mask. Even with it, his vision is failing.  
  
It gets harder to make the team meals when they come back from missions, but he does his best. Satya, in an uncharacteristic burst of kindness, makes him a special wheelchair built for the height of the stove and cabinets. He tries to thank her for it, but she shakes her head and blushes and tells him that it’s the least she can do. That she already owes him so much. She takes him down to the range and shoots a perfect bullseye for him.  
  
Hana gets clingier, but he supposes that’s to be expected. The wheelchair is a constant reminder of his own mortality. She brings him back things from missions— little trinkets and souvenirs, and presents them to him proudly. She’s getting older, too, but she still sits beside him during movie night and lets him stroke her hair. Mercy mentions something to him about her and Lucio making eyes at each other, and he spends a day wandering around in a daze from the realization that she’s not a child anymore. He wonders if one day he’ll have to walk her down the aisle. He wonders if he’ll live long enough to do that.  
  
He pines for Gabe every day. He has too much free time now, and he looks over old photos of Overwatch, stiff fingers running over the pictures. They start crumbling from being handled too much and he buys picture frames. He holds them close to himself. He sits on the porch and looks out at the sea and sighs too much. If he’s dying, he might as well follow the usual conventions.  
  
He starts telling stories. Ana will roll her eyes and laugh, but it turns out the rest of Overwatch is exceptionally good listeners. (Not to mention, he has exceptionally good stories.) He tells stories about practical jokes, about missions gone hilariously awry. He tells cautionary tales about mistakes he’d made long ago. One night, very drunk, he tells them about the explosion at the Swiss Headquarters, about blindly climbing out of the rubble, searching for Gabe and finding nothing. He’d never told anyone about it before. When he finishes the story Lena’s crying and Mercy gently suggests everyone go to bed.  
  
Lena is starting to age. Strangely, though. Somedays she’ll be as youthful and bouncy as ever, and some days Jack swears he can see wrinkles and laughter lines. They disappear and reappear, but periodically she’ll come home from missions and he’ll be shocked by how she suddenly looks ten years older. He worries for her, but when he asks she reassures him that everything is okay. Even Mercy, who seemed ageless, has crows feet in the corners of her eyes. He asks her about them and she tells him that she could have stopped it, but she wants to age, too. That despite her outward appearance, she’s also tired. They sit together, quietly, two old soldiers.  
  
They talk about Gabe constantly. The wraith Reaper has disappeared, and although the others gossip about where he could have gone to, Jack knows without a doubt that he’s dead. He doesn’t say anything, just holds the knowledge close to his heart. He’s not sure how much he ever believed in an afterlife, but now he takes comfort in the thought of seeing Gabe again. “I miss him.” He tells Mercy, almost every day. She smiles sadly and takes the photo from his hand and quietly suggests that he eat something, that he hasn’t been eating enough lately.  
  
He does end up walking Hana down the aisle. The wedding is small and private and Lucio smiles so wide it could blind someone. He cries when they exchange vows, quietly glad that nobody can see the tears streaming down his face from underneath the visor. He wears it all the time now. His vision is completely gone. After the wedding they all eat cake together, a chocolate monstrosity that Hana and Lucio had baked together the night before. Jack can’t manage that much of it but he reassures them both that it’s very, very good. Hana and Jack dance together as best they can despite his wheelchair, and he bows out quickly to allow Lucio to dance with his new wife.  
  
Ana is getting older too, and she tells Jack that if Fareeha marries in the family she’ll fucking kill her. (Although she also tells him, more privately, that she’d love to see a grandchild before she passes.) Jack doesn’t say anything to that. They both know that if Hana and Lucio ever have a child, it will be as much theirs as everyone else on the bases. After all, that’s the way Fareeha was raised.  
  
His hands start shaking. It starts off minor, but eventually it’s bad enough that he can no longer use a standard keyboard. Winston gives him one that’s specially built for his own massive hands. Mercy makes special gauntlets that minimize his tremors. The world marvels as Overwatch suddenly starts creating tech for the disabled at an unprecedented rate.  
  
Reinhardt dies, suddenly, in his sleep. According to his wishes, they burn him and scatter his ashes at sea, where the water laps up against the cliffs by the base. Zenyatta, as the only truly religious one of the group, ends up saying a few words. They are succinct and beautiful and Jack, for the life of him, cannot remember what they were. He does not cry at the funeral. He smiles. _I’ll see you again soon, old friend_.  
  
He’s glad, at least, that his mind is still with him. He’d always hated the idea of dying confused and frightened. (Although his memory is noticeably spotty.) He’s not useful like he used to be. He doesn’t have the strength or energy to cook or run ops. He mentions this to Mercy. He asks if he should go somewhere, find whatever long-lost family of his remains to take care of him in his old age. Mercy dismisses the idea immediately. “We are your family.” She tells him. “Leaving will only wound us.”  
  
So he stays. It gets difficult to hold down food, and he marvels as his body crumbles around him. He aches constantly, like every old wound is acting up all at once. Rainy days are the worst, and he spends them on the couch in the lounge, a heating blanket spread over his body. If there isn’t a mission coming up, Genji and Hana will sit with him and play video games together or watch a movie. Hana makes popcorn and plies him with it, and he thinks of what a good mother she will make someday.  
  
Jack watches the world change around him as an observer. Ana retires from combat, kicking and screaming, but soon takes up a seat running ops. Hanzo wears a special comm in his ear and lets the old sniper teach him everything she knows. Overwatch starts recruiting more, trying to make up for the sudden, gaping hole that Jack and Ana and Reinhardt had left in their wake. Jack, no longer able to teach the younger ones to shoot, passes on the job to McCree. He sits and watches Jesse gently correct the new recruits, and thinks about how Gabe would have been proud.  
  
Gabe.  
  
He didn’t mean to say it out loud, but he must have because Hana looks down at him. “Did you say something?”  
  
“No.” Jack shakes his head. Smiles. “No, I’m just tired.”  
  
“Do you want to go back to your room?”  
  
“It’s fine.” Jack says. “I think I’ll stay for a little longer.”

**Author's Note:**

> hahaha FUCK  
> title from this beautiful song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTFtz5hwO3w
> 
> edit: holy shit i did not expect the response i got to this!! I'm so honored, thank you all so much for your compliments and kudos, i appreciate the hell out of them and constantly re-read the comments. yall are so sweet and i'm glad you enjoyed my writing!


End file.
